Madam, - As usual, I greatly enjoyed Kevin Myers's column on Thursday, when he wrote about coelacanths and trade unions. Unusually, I also found myself agreeing with him.
He is absolutely right in comparing trade unions to coelacanths: they share an ability to adapt to changing environments. In one form or another we have had unions since the pyramids, when slaves regularly withdrew into the Nile marshes when conditions became too harsh.
I don't know if unions will survive as long as the coelacanth, but they will certainly outlive companies such as Irish Ferries, whose management can see no further than the next dividend or director's bonus. On balance I would rather be an Ictucanth, a Siptucanth or even a Nujacanth than a fossil. - Yours, etc,
PADRAIG YEATES, Balkill Road, Howth, Dublin 13.
Madam, - The Government has a responsibility to maintain the Irish workers at Irish Ferries. Charlie McCreevy pursued policies that brought down income tax while introducing indirect taxes for a variety of services. This has driven up the cost of living in Ireland.
In other words, workers now need to be paid more just to retain a standard of living they had 10 years ago. The eastern Europeans, however, can go back to their low-cost countries during their time off as comparatively wealthy citizens, even with their paltry Irish salaries in their pockets.
If the Government allows the Irish Ferries management get away with this disgraceful "cull", the unions will have no choice but to pull out of every agreement now in place, regroup and fight every single dispute on its merit. Some of your older readers might find that scenario all too familiar. - Yours, etc,
JOHN MALLON, 5 Shamrock Grove, Mayfield, Cork.
Madam, - According to Sean Dorgan, chief executive of the IDA, our exports last year were worth €68 billion. According to the Irish Exporters Association, 70 per cent of exports go by sea. Of these 25 to 30 per cent are carried by Irish Ferries.
By my calculation, therefore, about €13 billion euro, or 20 per cent of our exports, is carried by Irish Ferries. I believe that Siptu, by making the Irish Ferries dispute its Waterloo, is putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk. Since 1998 the total number employed in this country has risen from 1.2 million to 1.9 million. However, the number of jobs in manufacturing has actually fallen from 307,000 in 1998 to 294,000 in 2004. There are many reports stating that these jobs, which rely on exports, were already precarious before the Irish Ferries dispute.
Siptu is therefore increasing the risk of redundancy for 300,000 Irish, mainly unionised workers over a principled stand for the rights of 500 foreign workers. Ireland has a full-employment economy in which average wages have risen by 50 per cent in the past seven years.
The media have been hypocritical too, by feeding on the national social conscience in their treatment of this story. They are themselves hugely profitable themselves, owned by people who are no strangers to the corporate raid and the tax shelter, and run by handsomely paid executives.
The only socialist in the Dáil, Bertie Ahern, could solve this dispute at the stroke of a pen if he was true to his colours by re-nationalising Irish Ferries. Opposition politicians, if they knew how to, would blush.
Ironically, Eamon Rothwell of Irish Ferries is the only one not being disingenuous. His job, for which he is paid generously, is to maximise profits for the shareholders within the law. If he had broken the law we would have heard about it by now.
The profit motive is the cornerstone of our booming economy. We have embraced the low-tax service economy, with its consumer spending and property boom. Without question we have lost some of our social conscience and community spirit on the (congested) road to riches.
As we gorge ourselves this Christmas in a €4 billion feast, let us not forget the words of the man whose birthday we are supposed to be celebrating: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". - Yours, etc,
DEREK RYAN, Sion Road, Glenageary, Co Dublin.